Kuju Ltd.

Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth opened Simis in 1989 and produced a number of flight simulator programs like MiG-29 Fulcrum. In 1995, the company was purchased by Eidos and operated as an in-house development studio. In 1998, Baverstock and Newth led a management buyout of the studio from Eidos Interactive, forming Kuju Ltd.

The name "Kuju" originates from the initials of the founders’ first names: Ian Baverstock and Jonathan Newth. Jonathan was leafing through a Japanese dictionary when he found the numbers nine and ten – "ku" and "ju" – corresponding to the positions of "I" and "J" in the English alphabet. The combined result was Kuju. Their first game was Tank Racer, a 3D action racer for PC, PlayStation and mobile.

By 2001, Kuju was employing a team of 80 developers, in three separate offices around the UK in London, Surrey and Brighton. Their most notable project at the time was Microsoft Train Simulator. In 2002, Kuju floated on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange. Shortly thereafter the company signed its first game with THQ based on the Games Workshop franchise, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. In the following years between 2002 and 2007, Kuju developed titles including SingStar games and the Battalion Wars franchise. Kuju was one of the companies considered to develop the game engine for BBC's game show FightBox.

In 2007, Kuju Ltd. was acquired by a German media investment firm, Catalis SE. Soon after, Kuju Brighton was rebranded to Zoë Mode, and in 2008, Kuju London rebranded to Headstrong Games. In 2010, Headstrong Games completed development of Art Academy for the Nintendo DS console. In June 2012, Dominic Wheatley, co-founder of Domark, was appointed as CEO; while Gary Bracey, former vice-president of development at Ocean Software, was appointed as commercial director.

Headstrong Games

The studio was formed in 2000 as Kuju London. In 2008, it was rebranded as Headstrong Games.

Headstrong Games has developed versions of The House of the Dead: Overkill, The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest and Top Gun: Hard Lock. Original intellectual properties include Art Academy, which was developed for and owned by Nintendo. They also developed the Battalion Wars series, installments in Nintendo's Wars series.

Vatra Games

Vatra Games was a Czech video game studio founded in 2009 when Kuju Entertainment was seeking developers to establish a new studio. At the same time, several developers from 2K Czech were retiring. These developers decided to form a new studio, which became Vatra Games. In July 2012, four months after the March release of Silent Hill: Downpour, Kuju Entertainment Limited terminated its contract with Vatra Games. In September 2012, Vatra Games was declared bankrupt.